Magnets: Attractive Treatment for What Ails You?
Dateline: 10/20/98MAGNET, n. Something acted upon by magnetism.
MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Magnets. By now you've seen the news stories and heard about your favorite athlete. She uses magnets to overcome the arthritis that interferes with her putting stroke. He uses magnets to help him sleep after a long, hard day on the gridiron. Magnetic sole inserts keep him running farther and faster. Golfers Jim Colbert, Bob Murphy, and Donna Andrews swear by their magnets, and Chi Chi Rodriguez sells magnetic bracelets to benefit his children's organization. Pitcher Hideki Irabu wears a whole series of magnets in the sleeve of his shirt. After decking quarterbacks all day, linebacker Bill Romanowski sleeps on a magnetic mattress pad. You'll find no shortage of testimonials about the efficacy of magnets, but do they really work? There seems to be no easy answer to this simple question.
The History of Magnetic Therapy
Magnets have been used for thousands of years. Ancient Chinese medical texts advise the application of lodestones to acupuncture sites. Hindu religious documents tout the use of magnets in treating diseases. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans used magnets to treat a whole host of diseases, ranging from arthritis to depression. Some ancient societies mined magnetite to use in various potions.
Today, millions of people worldwide -- not just professional athletes -- use magnets for an encyclopedic range of medical conditions. Web sites touting the effectiveness of magnets (and selling them in various shapes, sizes, and styles) abound. Unfortunately, the evidence supporting the use of magnets in any condition is murky, at best.
How Magnets Are Proposed to Work
How magnets are supposed to work depends on whom you ask (this is always worrisome).
YOUR HEALTH SOURCE says "the iron in the magnet is thought to stimulate the heme production of the blood which controls the oxyten content in the blood stream. Some sort of stabilization of the nervous system occurs with the use of magnets and this eases pain."
Bullfoot Biomagnetics has this to say: "Any disturbance or abnormal fluctuation, i.e., escessive rise or fall in the magnetic or energy fields of a particular organ or organs is sure to overthrow normalcy in the working of the organs and that means ailment, of mild or even serious nature... Being able to measure the variance from normal makes diseases predictable and changing these energy fields back to normal with magnets changes the disease to health."
Theramagnets cites an article my Dr. William Pawluk in promoting its magnets. Here are some of Dr. Pawluk's quotes, out of context but not off the mark of his article: "magnets increase the energy (chi) flow along a hand meridian"; "[magnets] stimulate the acupuncture points and meridians"; "they work on red blood cells because the contain iron"; "they affect some chemical processes within and between cells"; and "[magnets] can affect nerve signals."
These many proposals regarding how magnets might work have not been tested with the sort of rigor expected by mainstream scientists, so they are difficult to assess. Those who have benefited from the use of magnets are understandably less concerned about the validity of the proposed mechanisms, and many practitioners of magnetic therapy claim artistry over science in practicing their healing techniques.
Your Senior Health Guide, trained in the Western traditions of internal medicine but open to the benefits offered by alternative medicine, remains unsatisfied, at best, with these hazy explanations of the mechanisms of magnetic therapy.
Indications for Magnetic Therapy
If explanations are hard to come by, claims of efficacy are hard to avoid. Here again, though, well-designed and well-controlled studies are few.
Before mentioning the clinical studies, let's list some of the specific ailments for which magnets are claimed to be effective:
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Quite a list
, you say. But what's the evidence?Less than you'd hope for. Two well-controlled clinical trials in different indications gave conflicting results. Baylor College of Medicine published the results of a study in 1997 in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Twenty-nine patients suffering from post-polio pain received magnets placed over their pain trigger points for 45 minutes, and twenty-one patients received similar nonmagnetic strips. Just over three-quarters of the patients with real magnets experienced pain relief, while just under one-fifth of those without magnets felt an improvement. Magnetic therapy proponents have repeatedly cited this small study as definitive evidence of the efficacy of magnets for all ailments.
In another study, conducted by researchers at New York College of Podiatric Medicine, magnets applied to the insoles of those suffering from heel pain were no better than nonmagnetic insoles in providing pain relief: 60% of both groups reported improvements.
You've read it in this space before: more research is needed before we know whether or not magnets actually work.
"Magnets Don't Work": The Opposing View
"Quackery." That's how Dr. William Jarvis of National Council Against Health Fraud describes magnet therapy for chronic pain. His organization believes that the public is too easily led astray by organizations that mix real science with fancy theory to create pseudoscience. By informing the public of these attempts to fool the public, NCAHF hopes to dispell myths and protect people from spending money on treatments that are not only worthless, but also potentially harmful.
Mainstream medicine has long opposed unsubstantiated treatments that play on peoples' hopes and prey on their pocketbooks. One attempt to test magnetic therapy springs from the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine. The OAH has awarded a grant to the University of Virginia to study the effects of magnets in chronic pain, though it will be some time before results of any clinical trials reach the public.
Where does this leave us? With lots of claims and a shortage of evidence. Perhaps the best news is that magnetic therapy seems to be benign. Although you're likely to meet skeptical resistance, your first step, if you're considering magnetic therapy, is to consult your physician. You wouldn't want to begin using magnets, for example, if you have a cardiac pacemaker. If she/he says magnets are safe for you, then it may be worth a trial of therapy to see whether they offer any relief of your own medical condition. If she/he says it isn't safe, you simply shouldn't do it.
These sites are among many on the Internet that offer magnetic products: